Global travel distributor GTA, which focuses on the fully independent travel (FIT) business shared insights on the latest travel trends for Chinese travelers during the Golden Week holiday. Despite initial concerns of China outbound tourism being affected by the weak economic situation and devaluated yuan, GTA’s average sales revenue and volume has almost doubled from last year, with outstanding growths in some new destinations, demonstrating that Chinese travelers are continuing to travel abroad.
Based on year-on-year comparison of room nights booked and earned revenue, Hong Kong and Singapore took the top two positions. Phuket came in third, and was the top beach destination, where room bookings doubled from 2014. The other popular beach destinations in Thailand, Koh Samui and Krabi, also saw strong room bookings this Golden Week holiday. Exotic beach locations, which saw new market opportunities from Chinese tourists, include Mexico’s Cancun, Fiji Islands, Negombo in Sri Lanka, Mauritius, and Koh Lanta and Koh Racha in Thailand.
Daryl Lee, GTA’s Regional Vice President of Sales & Marketing for Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa, said that despite initial concerns of China outbound tourism, Chinese travelers are continuing to travel abroad, many seeking exotic beach holidays, or choosing to venture further during their Golden Week holiday.
Destinations in Japan showed the largest growth for Chinese tourism revenue from 2014 where Tokyo, Osaka, and Okinawa all saw a huge increase in room bookings.
Auckland saw a jump in room bookings ten times more than 2014, while Melbourne, the top Australian city visited, together with Sydney, Cairns and Perth all had room bookings triple in size.
America’s top five destinations were Los Angeles, Las Vegas, New York, Chicago and San Francisco whereas London, Paris, Rome, Florence, Milan and Madrid were the top European cities visited. Denmark and Sweden also saw strong performance this year, with both countries tripling in room nights booked.
